In general, the present disclosure relates to methods and systems that employ radio frequency identification (RFID) techniques.
The identification industry has undergone many changes over the past few years, especially with respect to the use of transponders to track and identify items. By replacing handwritten labels, RFID systems employ RFID tags, which are applied to objects such as vials. The RFID tags can be encoded with information relating to the vial such as vial contents and other information. Each RFID tag can be individually and manually scanned to procure the information stored on the RFID tag, for example, when the RFID tag is taken out of a storage apparatus.
Typically, a log of the contents of the vials in the storage apparatus is maintained. However, since the storage apparatus can hold a large number of vials (e.g., approximately 20,000 1-2 mL vials), tracking vial inventory can be difficult.
One conventional way to track inventory employs attaching or connecting an RFID tag to each stored vial. The vials are placed in or removed from the storage apparatus. However, the tags on the vials must be individually and manually read (e.g., scanned) with an RFID reader, which is held by an operator (e.g., a scientist, technician, etc.) to electronically identify the vials outside of the storage device. Before the vials are added to the storage apparatus, a given RFID vial tag is individually read, and the inventory list associated with the storage apparatus is updated or initially generated by adding vial information to the list. Similarly, after vials are removed from the storage apparatus, the RFID tag is individually read, and the inventory list is updated by removing the vial information associated with the removed vial from the inventory list.
This technique, however, is labor intensive and time consuming since a manual RFID reading step is required each time an individual vial is added or removed from the storage device. Failure by the operator to perform this RFID reading step can cause errors in the inventory list for the storage device. Further, by manually and repeatedly performing the scan and update steps, the inventory operation can be prone to human errors such as miscommunications, misuses, overscanning, underscanning, omitting steps, and other problems which, in turn, can be the cause of, for example, significant inventory control errors, inventory logistical planning difficulties, loss of samples or vials, missing chain of custody data, and inventory restocking delays.
It would be desirable to have a device that substantially automates the inventory tracking process and overcomes one or more of the problems discussed above.